# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1860_S327
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Fifteen Theses on Usury.                    327

right that, if anyone is found who, according to this explanation,
takes interest on what was lent or in any other way pursues this
matter — whether he demands the hemiolia, or contrives anything else
for shameful gain — he shall be cast out of the clergy and regarded as
a stranger to the canon." — The Council of Elvira, A.D. 305: "If any
of the clergy is shown to be one who takes interest, he shall be
deposed and cast out. But if a layman is proven to be such, and takes
interest, and persists in this godlessness, let him know that he is to
be cast out of the church." The Council of Arles, A.D. 314: "As
regards clergy who practice usury, it has been decided, according to
the rule commanded by God, to exclude them from communion." — The
Second Council of Arles, A.D. 353: "If a cleric has lent money at
usury, etc., he shall be deposed and excommunicated." — The First
Council of Carthage, A.D. 256: "Abundantius, bishop of Hadrumetum, has
said: In our council it has been established that it is not lawful for
the clergy to take interest, for what is censured in the laity must be
condemned all the more in the clergy." — The Third Council of
Carthage, A.D. 416: "None of the clergy shall take more than he has
lent to anyone; if he has taken money, he shall take back as much of
the same kind as he gave, and if anything else, as much as he gave." —
The Council of Laodicea, A.D. 367: "No cleric may lend out and take
interest and the so-called hemiolia." — The First Council in Trullo,
A.D. 680: "A bishop, presbyter, or deacon who takes interest or the
so-called centesima shall desist from it or be deposed." Decisions
such as these named form parts of the canon law, which was valid
throughout the whole Middle Ages and is still today the chief source
of church law.

B. That the taking of interest is condemned as an immoral act by the
moral judgment even of the natural, unregenerate man is proved, among
other things, by:

1. From the people of the Greeks, Aristotle, Politics 1, 10: With the
greatest right the acquisition of interest-taking on lent capital is
hated, because the gain is won from the money itself and is not used
for the purpose for which it was intended. For money was introduced
for the sake of the exchange of things, but interest increases and
multiplies it. Hence it has received this name, τόκος, "the
offspring." For the offspring is of the same kind as that by which it
was engendered. Now interest is money engendered from money, so